XENIA, Ohio -- Mike Pershing was a Republican for most of his life. But since the Iraq War, he said, he's voted for Democrats for president - including Hillary Clinton in 2016.

"I felt the Republicans have gotten a little too extreme right," he said.

Pershing, a married 64-year-old, said he's been "very disappointed" with Donald Trump's first few weeks in office. Many of Trump's cabinet picks, he said, have been the "worst possible choices."

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The only positive thing he's heard from Trump, he said, is a promise of more money for infrastructure, including for high-speed rail.

"I'm interested to see what's going to happen there," he said.

Pershing retired at the beginning of the year from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he worked as a physicist. Now, he owns a couple of storefronts in downtown Xenia, though neither currently has tenants. In one of the stores, Pershing sells antiques - "just to keep it from being empty," he said - and works part-time restoring old photographs. When a reporter recently visited, he was transferring footage of wreckage from the devastating 1974 Xenia tornado from a film projector onto a computer.

"A lot of stores in Xenia have come and gone," he said. "New ones come in, last a few years, then close. We don't have a booming downtown."

Pershing said he's not optimistic that Trump will do anything to help change that.

"He never says anything specific," Pershing said. "'Everything's going to be great. It's going to be great' -- that's all he says, and that's not enough to give me confidence."